Hayes Geldmacher, Author at Unwinnable

A screenshot from Rain World, featuring a white slugcat in between two enormous black rabbits with tendril horns, all caught in a noisy junk-filled world

Making Peace in the Toothy Maw of Rain World

By Hayes Geldmacher • July 2nd, 2024

After experiencing Rain World’s unforgiving cycle of death and punishment, it is not only understandable but anticipated that players would get fed up with the abuse and walk away to games that welcome their time and attention with any amount of appreciation. Why, then, do some players stay?

A screenshot from Fear and Hunger 2: Termina with a young student in a dark basement looking one way while a hideous creature emerges towards her from behind

Games with Teeth

By Hayes Geldmacher • February 21st, 2024

I painstakingly prepared for each enemy encounter as though it was my last and walked into every room with the learned caution of a once-captured animal.

The cover art for Devil Daggers, with an extreme close up of a screaming skull with winding ram like horns on either side and even a couple more bony horns right by the face it's very spooky

Have You Danced with Devil Daggers in the Pale Moonlight?

By Hayes Geldmacher • July 27th, 2023

Devil Daggers is kind enough to let the song of my muscles take control, to flow over hard stone like cool water – to dance among the damned.

Two screenshots, Inside on the left and Gorogoa on the right. For Inside, a young child is crouching behind a fence in dark, misty woods by a road and in the distance a truck backs up towards the shadow of an adult with a dog. For the Gorogoa shot there are four images, in the top left a notebook and some pocket watches on a map, to the right of that an animated fireplace, to the bottom left a broken statue, destroyed wall, and government building in the distance, and lastly a white mirror or dais as seen from above

Ideology Speaks Through Architecture: Exploring Inside and Gorogoa

By Hayes Geldmacher • June 14th, 2023

Whereas Inside demonstrates the depths of oppressive architectural language, Gorogoa does the opposite by elevating space beyond the physical into the cosmic.